


Great Fun

by Mosca



Category: Chef RPF
Genre: F/M, Food Metaphors, Friends to Lovers, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: On a picnic while they're stationed together in Ceylon, Julia brings the gin and Paul brings the confessions.
Relationships: Julia Child/Paul Child
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Great Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lorelei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/gifts).



> Thank you so much for the opportunity to write for you! It was a delight to learn about Julia and Paul's early lives. Most of my information about their time in the OSS in what is now Sri Lanka comes from Noël Riley Fitch's biography of Child, _Appetite for Life._
> 
> This story contains a mention of driving while tipsy, acknowledgement that war exists, and all of the food porn you'd expect.
> 
> My anonymous beta reader is a gift, as always!

Paul is not an attractive man. He’s short and bald, blind in one eye, with a beakish nose and a chronic case of heat rash that makes him look as if he’s permanently crimson with embarrassment. He’s also entirely too old for Julia, not that it stops him from laying it on thick with every woman at Nandana, even the married girls and the lesbians. Especially them, because flirtation is a game to Paul, not a means to a wife. He’s a dog chasing cars, and when he doesn’t catch them, he barks to Julia.

Julia is the only woman around who Paul doesn’t flirt with. He talks to her about serious matters: the War, Chinese politics, the possibility of social reform after the war ends. And the most serious matter of all, food. They’re constantly advised against seeking meals outside the OSS compound, but everyone except steel-stomached Julia gets the trots no matter what they eat, so better to enjoy the journey to the outhouse. The local cuisine is extraordinary, flavored with real cinnamon and black pepper infinitely more fragrant and nuanced than the wan jarred spices at an American supermarket, tongue-searing spices cooled with coconut rice porridge and tall glasses of watery but ice-cold beer. Julia can’t imagine trudging back to pot roast and baked potatoes when she returns to America.

She wouldn’t have chosen to become an old maid, but she’s made her peace. As she’s watched her chums from Smith pair off and settle into domesticity, she’s envied their love and certainty, but she’s the first to admit she’s had the more interesting life. And although she’s fond of children, she’s never felt much urge to produce her own. If all she’d wanted was a dull and stable husband, she would have accepted Harrison’s proposal. Instead, she’s opted for adventure and the chance to save the world in some small way. 

On their day off, Paul borrows one of the all-terrain Jeeps and takes her out to the countryside. Julia knows she isn’t his first choice for a date, but she’s a reliable adventurer. She’s “good company,” he would tell her if she asked, with all the subtext it entails: too tall, too excitable, not intellectual enough. Still, she’s eager for the diversion and the fresh air. She smuggles a bottle of so-so Australian gin that she’s been saving for a special occasion, having faced the fact that no occasion here will be terribly special until the war ends.

One has to drive quite far to reach true jungle; where they’re headed is more of a forested park. Kandy isn’t exactly a cosmopolitan city, but it’s civilized, and as the amateur archaeologists of the OSS like to point out, it has been since long before the British planted a flag. Still, it’s beautiful. The OSS crowd call it Shangri-La for a reason. Vegetation grows lush here, even in the places where you don’t want it. Tree branches sway heavy with brilliant clusters of leaves and fragrant fruit that can be plucked and eaten on the spot. 

Paul drives them into an idyllic clearing surrounded by swaying trees. “What a romantic spot,” Julia can’t help saying as she helps him shake out the picnic blanket. “You might make me wonder about your intentions.” She follows the comment with a hearty, hooting laugh to inoculate herself against being taken seriously, and thereby getting her heart dented.

“Why don’t we fix ourselves some drinks, and then we can talk intentions.” He produces a bottle of tonic water and a couple of fine, round Ceylonese limes, perfumey and sweet, God’s gift to the humble gin-and-tonic. The rest of the meal is all pilfered from the OSS mess - greasy cold chicken, chutneys dumbed down to Western tolerances of spiciness, day-old bread. The quality of a meal cannot always be the point, Julia supposes.

“The truth is, Julie, you’re a puzzle,” Paul says. 

In the drink he gives her, the tonic water is mostly an afterthought. He knows her well. “How do you mean? I don’t think I’m a puzzle at all. Heart on my sleeve, you know.”

“Well, for me, you are,” he says. “You might have heard I have a reputation as a flirt?”

“Through the grapevine.” She smiles through the burn of the gin.

“The puzzle is, you’re flirt-proof, Julie,” he says. “You light up the room even when you’re standing in the corner, hunched over a filing cabinet. When I tell the other girls how wonderful they are, it means something, but you - everyone tells you all the time, so when I compliment you, it’s no special occasion at all.”

“I don’t mind a compliment,” Julia says.

“I know you don’t  _ mind  _ one,” Paul says. “But when I give you one, I don’t think you realize what I’m telling you.” 

She draws in a breath to interrupt, but Paul catches her in the act and touches a finger to her lips. It’s the most intimate gesture he’s ever made toward her. 

“Of all the girls here, you’re my favorite one to spend time with,” he says. “You’ll go anywhere, you’ll eat anything, you’ll laugh at any joke that’s funny and groan at any joke that isn’t. What you’ve got is  _ joie de vivre,  _ and the best thing about you is, it’s contagious.”

Julia stammers for a response. She hasn’t been feeling a whole lot of  _ joie de vivre  _ lately, with her monotonous file clerk job and a transfer to China looming. “Thank you.” She feels herself curling her shoulders toward her cocktail. “That is how one replies to a compliment, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Paul says. “But I guess I was hoping to hear what you think of me.”

“Oh, now you’re in for it.” She gets him to laugh before adding, “Oh, Paul. You know I think you’re great fun.”

She fears he wants to hear more about himself, but either he isn’t the type to need it, or he isn’t the type to show it. “So why don’t you say we keep having fun when we get to Kunming, and see where it takes us?” he says.

“How did you know I was being transferred?”

“Most of us are, aren’t we?” Paul says. “Not much for a bunch of spies to do down here anymore. They’re sending us all over the hump.”

“Are they?” She feels a glimmer, not quite of excitement, but of something that isn’t desolation. “Well, then, I’m sure it will be nice to have all my friends there. And you especially.”

He leans toward her and runs his hand up from her wrist to her elbow. She should have expected a kiss, but she’s never had a good read on when one was about to be offered. “Just a second,” she says. “Let me put my glass down before I waste all this gin on your shirt.” She secures the base of the glass in a patch of earth at the edge of the picnic blanket, then drapes her arms over his shoulders. He is a firm kisser but not an overly forward one, with no bumping of noses or clamor of teeth, like he has an instinct for how his face fits hers. He’s an experienced man. She could get used to this.

He kisses her solidly but doesn’t try to get too fresh. When he pulls back, he says, “I should have brought you some kind of trinket, but all I have is this enormous papaya.” With some effort, he shakes a tropical fruit the size of a hearty human infant from his bag. 

“Impressive,” Julia says. “Where’d you pilfer it from?”

“The kitchen, like the rest. I can’t imagine how the cooks would have butchered it, but they would have found a way.” Paul produces an unnervingly large knife. Julia holds the monstrous papaya still while Paul hacks it in half, and they spend the rest of the afternoon up to their sleeves in orange pulp. When they can’t eat any more, Julia challenges Paul to a seed-spitting contest, at which she roundly trounces him. 

Sticky and half-drunk, they ramble back to Nandana in the Jeep. “I hear the food’s tremendous in Kunming,” Paul says. “They don’t just have the local fare, but cuisine from all over China. Have you ever had a Peking duck?”

“My knowledge of Chinese food tops out at chow mein, I’m afraid,” Julia says.

“Well, get ready for an education, then,” Paul says. “I plan to take you to every duck house in Kunming. And then kiss you in the street while I walk you home.”

“It’s good to have goals,” Julia says breezily, but she’s already dreaming, as much of the future kisses as the future ducks.


End file.
